Realization
by ShayaCatalyst
Summary: Seamus worries for his own sanity, worries that Dean took his grasp on reality when he left...Sometimes imaginary-Dean kisses Seamus. In his dreams, Seamus doesn't mind." Eventual Deamus slash, don't like, don't read. PLEASE R&R!
1. Revelations

Seamus didn't realize Dean was his best friend until it had been an established fact in the eyes of all others for nearly two and a half years. He didn't even work it out for himself, either. He might not even have know were it not for Lavender.

It was about half way through third year. Lavender was calmly sitting in the common room, minding her own business, when Seamus stormed through the portrait hole with all the fury of a man who's had his transfiguration notes tossed in a mud puddle. He stood for a moment, fuming at the comfortable but seemingly empty room, before noticing poor little Miss Lavender Brown curled up with her divination book. Sensing a captive audience, Seamus embarked on a furious tirade against Slytherins in general, and Vincent Crabbe in particular (peanut brained, evil, disgusting mindless zombie), with a fervor that would have done even Ron proud.

About seven minutes into Seamus' monologue , Lavender decided she could take no more and broke in with an exasperated, "Why don't you tell Dean? He's your best friend, he's probably used to your insanity,"

"What do you mean?" he asked, stunned.

"Well, Seamus, my darling dearest wonderful friend, I've been wondering for the last forty-six seconds exactly how long it will take before you start foaming at the mouth," she said as pleasantly as she could, confused by his puzzlement.

"That's not what I meant," he said, brushing off the mild insult like a cobweb. "What you said about Dean-"

"Well," she replied, really and truly bewildered, "This is the kind of thing people usually discuss with their friends, and while I do generally like you as a human being, we're hardly attached at the hip like you and Dean."

Without even bothering to reply, Seamus stumbled off to turn this revelation over in his mind.

Friends? He supposed he and Dean were friends, they certainly spent nearly all of their time together, but weren't friends supposed to get along? And the prolonged amounts of time together, that was mostly circumstance. McGonagle had said it, hadn't she, your house becomes like your family, and it was doubly true for your year They were the people you spent nearly all you time with, and there were pretty limited choices.

Harry, Ron and Hermione were always off being heroic together, Neville had his plants and his perpetually missing toad, and Lavender and Parvati were finishing each others' sentences before the first week was up, and that just left Seamus and Dean, thrown together pretty much all the time.

Because when you spend lessons and mealtimes with a person, it's only natural to walk to meals from class with them, and then it makes sense to finish your dinnertime conversation walking back up to the dorms, where you naturally fall into doing your homework together, and before you know it you're hanging out in the common room long after everyone's asleep, bickering over the relative merits of muggle versus wizarding sports as the fire burns away to nothing.

Seamus had always believed, for some reason, that friendship was built around shared interests, mutual respect, or compatible personalities. This is why he was blindsided by the notion that Dean was not only his friend, but his best friend. Dean and Seamus fight about everything, all the time, ranging from a steady stream of gentle bickering to the type of shouting match which makes the entire Great Hall turn and take notice.

They even dueled once, in second year, about who the Heir to Slytherin was. They'd ended up both of them with fractured ribs, various bruises, and a healthy respect for their own and each other's abilities to do harm, and any grudge between them was forgotten within days.

This is how Seamus explains to himself the fact that it's taken him years to realize the obvious truth; that the boy he spends all his time with, misses every holiday, and sits next to at every single lesson, is, in fact, his best friend.

Besides, he rationalized, it had all happened so gradually he had hardly noticed anything changing until that day when he finally realized that Dean had changed in his mind from "that quiet kid who sleeps across the dorm" into someone unique, a staunch defender of muggle football, worthy dueling partner, brilliant artist, and integral part of Seamus' day to day life.

The realization wasn't shattering, in fact, it changed nothing. Seamus decided the subject was something to consider later, and ran down to meet his best friend at dinner.


	2. Revelations 2

(A/N- I don't mean to offend anyone religious here, I just couldn't help but think that some religious muggles might have a problem with magic, and wanted to play with the idea. Als

I'm sorry if this doesn't seem to have a plot, since it doesn't, really. It seems to be more of a set of connected episodes.

Disclaimer- I'm flattered that you'd even consider for a moment that I might be an internationally acclaimed author. What's that you say? It never occurred to you? That's why I probably won't bother disclaiming again.

Thanks a million to my lovely reviewers, MoonyIsTheMan and Chrys-Moony-Marauder. Reviews are like sunlight to me, they make my life worthwhile (yes, that is a hint))

sdsdsdsdsdsdsd

Seamus didn't even consider the possibility that he was probably the best friend Dean had as well until just over a year later. Somehow, the fact that he was one of the only people Dean even spoke to consistently just didn't register. No, it took another lightning bolt of realization before he made the connection.

They were fourteen and on the train home from Easter holidays. Dean had been uncharacteristically silent for the past hour and a half, and Seamus' mouth was working over-time to fill the void. He was in the middle of a particularly pointless story involving the neighbor's tailless dog, an unusual brand of shaving cream, and Seamus' mother, when Dean cut him off.

"They don't want me back," he stated in a calm but bitter and painfully matter-of-fact tone.

Seamus sat and blinked unintelligently for a moment, trying to wrap his twisted train of thought around Dean's cryptic but obviously important announcement. Finally, he managed to form a sensible, or at least pertinent, question.

"Who doesn't want you back?"

"My parents," Dean replied, voice still quiet and slightly dead. "Mum found religion, or something. Saw the light, I guess," he shrugged, "I didn't ask. Anyway, apparently, not only is magic somehow equivalent to devil-worship, but I'm too far gone to be saved. They don't want me back. They'll keep paying for school, but they don't want me coming home on holiday," and here the bitterness returned to his voice, "so I don't contaminate my sisters."

Seamus continued to stare blankly, and Dean continued after a moment's hesitation, sounding a little lost, "I can stay at school most of the time, but summer's going to be a problem. I suppose I could stay at the Leaky Cauldron, get a job in Diagon Ally, though most places probably aren't too keen on hiring a homeless fourteen year old with no work experience…"

He trailed off, staring out the window, before turning to Seamus with a sudden stab of desperation on his face. In that moment, Seamus felt the weight of implicit trust, of being the one person Dean turned to even as he shut out the rest of the world in a wall of untouchable silence.

"What am I going to do, Shay?" he asked softly, almost pleading.

Seamus could not bear to see the look of naked vulnerability on the face of his generally unflappably calm and confident friend. He reached for he only swift and plausible solution he could think of, not even considering the consequences, his only goal to erase the uncertainty in Dean's eyes.

He said, "You'll come home with me, of course. I'm sure mum won't mind."

Sdsdsdsdsdsdsdsdsds

As it turned out, Mum did mind, a bit. She didn't really want to share her only time with her son with a school friend, particularly one who had seemed so remote when he'd joined them at the World Cup the previous summer she hadn't been able to get to know him. Indeed, as quiet and calm as he had been, he seemed like an unlikely friend for her charming, gregarious, and unfailingly active son.

Still Seamus rarely asked for favors, and he seemed so set on the notion that she found herself agreeing to let Dean stay on a trial basis, all the while wondering if she'd have the heart to turn the child out into the street to fend for himself if it didn't work out.

As it turned out, she needn't have worried, for Dean was polite and helpful, and he certainly loosened up a bit as she got to know him. She tended to think he had a good influence on Seamus.


	3. Failed Experiment

(A/N- here you are, MoonyIsTheMan, my darling reviewer, a chapter from Dean's point of view. Also, this is where I introduce the concept of more-than-friendship between the boys, so I'm a little nervous. Reassuring reviews will be more welcome than ever [though concrit is always welcome. Enjoy!)

Sdsdsdsdsdsdsdsdsd

Dean realized with a start one day that he was living for one person and one person only. As soon as the realization struck him, he tried to take it back, to forget, because the thought made him feel more than a little pathetic, but once the idea had been acknowledged it was irrevocably locked into his brain.

At the age of sixteen, Dean Thomas gave in and admitted to himself that Seamus was his whole world. Best friend (only friend, if he was honest with himself. That Ravenclaw girl, Parvati's sister, was the next closest thing, but she was more of a very friendly aquaintence,), but so much more than that. Ever since he'd brought Dean home with him a year and a half ago, in the same way he might have brought home a lost puppy, Seamus had somehow managed to nearly painlessly take the place of Dean's entire family. And now he was Dean's crush.

It was getting ridiculous.

Dean understood that there was only so much neediness most people could or would take before they bailed on a relationship. Any inkling Seamus might get that Dean wanted even more from him than all he was providing already; the constant companionship, the patience with artistically temperamental mood swings, the consistent positivity in the face of Dean's fatalism; and he might be gone faster than Dean could blink. It was an awful lot to ask from person.

Dean decided to do the only sensible thing to do for a boy who's suddenly developed a pulse-altering, blush-inducing, terrifying crush on his best friend; he started dating someone else.

Sdsdsdsdsdsdsdsdsdsd

Ginny was beautiful. Stunning, really, with flashing dark eyes and shimmering red hair and the most intriguing crooked smile.

Dean can sometimes even convince himself to be a little in love with her. Not that she expects him to be. That's the thing about her that fascinates him most, really. She doesn't just know he's pining for someone else, she approached him because of it.

She'd walked up to him one day in the library, exuding a brash confidence that accompanied her every action, gazed down at his half finished Potions essay, the margins of which were littered with doodled hearts and multitudinously repeated sketches of a pair of bony freckled hands, and asked, "And who is it that you're so infatuated with?"

She'd brushed aside his startled protest and continued, "There's no point in denying it, not after I've seen that parchment, but I won't bug you about it. I honestly don't really care. I think we should go out."

Now, Dean knew there was something seriously unbalanced about the fact that she wanted to date him because he wanted someone else. Even though this was exactly the out he'd been looking for, he had the presence of mind to form some kind of coherent question regarding why his alleged infatuation with someone else meant they should "go out".

Her answer, such as it was, boiled down to this: she'd been madly in love with Harry Potter since she was ten, and didn't really think it was a healthy obsession. She'd tried getting over him by dating other people, but the problem was that all the people she'd dated had really liked her (Dean remembered laughing at this point, and being subdued by her furious glare). She'd decided that the only way she could possibly get over Harry would be to date someone who was also getting over someone else.

Although Dean was still inclined to think her a little cracked, and was completely unable to follow her twisted logic, he somehow found himself agreeing to give it a try and take her out to tea on the next Hogsmead trip.

Giving it a try had lead to the revalation that Ginny Weasley was really very good company, which, in turn, had lead to more dates, and finally to what his mother, had she been in contact with him, might have termed "going steady", which in the fullness of time had led to the nightmare that was today, when Ginny was to busy simultaneously looking stunning and screaming at him to remember that this wasn't supposed to mean anything.

Dean tried to remind her, but every time he opened his mouth, she erupted into another furious tirade against him. Dean was a little bewildered as to what mortal sin he'd actually committed (something about being a sexist, condescending, poufy bastard who wouldn't save her from a snake if his life depended on it), but really, he was just as glad this seemed to be heralding the end of the Dean-and-Ginny relationship.

Potter, he supposed, could have her, if he wanted her. While she was beautiful and smart and funny, she was also manipulative, touchy, and just a little bit psychotic. Besides, she wasn't the only beautiful, smart, funny person in the world, or even in Gryphendor. And she didn't know how to structure a decent argument.

And anyway instead of, as Dean had expected (or perhaps dreaded), being glad that Dean Thomas had stopped constantly following him around, Seamus, it seemed actually felt a little hurt and neglected at not being the sole center of Dean's universe. Dean couldn't bear it if he'd made Seamus upset.


	4. Confession

(A/N -So I was trying to write a Seamus-is-jealous-of-Ginny chapter, but it was really not working, and I was getting so frustrated I was considering giving up on the story, but then this plot bunny came along and bit me so hard I bled, so I thought why not? Who am I to argue with destiny?

So, just for your reference, from this chapter on (and I'm not exactly sure how much longer it will be, probably not much longer than a chapter or two more… unless I get buckets of inspiration and a few adoring fans begging for more) We're officially within the bounds of book seven, so I guess there would be some pretty mild spoiler alerts here.

Also, thanks a million to my darling new reviewer, PENGUiN2006MASTER. Reviews are my life.)

(A/N 2 After this I swear I'm done, I just wanted to say, I read this one fic where Lee was Seamus' friend/mentor, and loved the idea, so I'm borrowing it. If I find out what the title is, I'll post it here next chapter. And I bet you're sick of reading me babble, so here goes-)

Sdsdsdsdsdsdsd

They lived in troubling times. Dean became a target. They were afraid. They should have been even more so. Finally it was decided that flight was the only sensible option, at least for Dean, who wouldn't have a chance out in the open.

A few weeks after Dean left, Seamus took a train into London, to meet his friend Lee Jordan for lunch. Lee had graduated, and didn't have to deal with all of the craziness that Hogwarts was about to be plunged into. Seamus did, and was nervous. In a less than tactful attempt to distract him, Lee brought the subject around to Dean, curious, in any case, as to why he hadn't come up earlier.

Seamus seemed discomfited by the turn of subject, and said nothing or a moment, before blurting out, "He told me he loves me."

"Finally!" Lee exclaimed with a grin.

"What?"

"Nothing, never mind, just tell me what happened."

"He was getting ready to take off. On the run, you know. And one day, the last day, he asked me what I was so worried about, I wasn't the one going into hiding, and so I told him. I told him I was scared he wouldn't come back. Then he said it. He said, 'I love you. That's why I have to come back.'"

"Then what?" Lee asked as Seamus stared abstractly at his hands. When Seamus didn't reply, Lee asked, a little sharply, "Seamus!"

He looked up quickly at the sound of his name, his gaze startled, as if he'd forgotten Lee was there, asking, "What?"

"Then what happened?"

"Then he kissed me. He kissed me and then asked if I still wanted him to come back. I must have said yes, or nodded or something. I'm not sure. Then he disappeared."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that," he replied glumly.

"And you haven't heard from him since?"

"Of course not," Seamus snapped, "that's not part of the plan."

"I just thought after something like that-"

"The plan," Seamus continued briskly, if a little sadly, "is that he'll send an owl if he finds a secure place and a discreet looking bird. If not, no contact. There's no point in going into hiding if he's going to get himself caught sending an owl."

Lee would have had to be completely unperceptive not to notice the fretful, uncertain look on Seamus' face. He was a little unsure what to say, but offered the only thing he could think of.

"You know, if you don't hear from him soon, you could post a notice on Potterwatch, to see if anyone's run into him. At least you'd know he's alright."

"I thought only family was supposed to do that," Seamus commented, still unconvinced.

"I have some connections…" Lee murmured elusively, and then continued more clearly, "Just say you're asking for his muggle mother and his poor baby sisters. Face it, Shay. For better or for worse, as far as family goes, you're pretty much all Dean has."

"I guess so. Thanks Lee. I may just take you up on that, if he goes too long without writing."

"What are you going to say if -when you see him again?"

"I don't know."


	5. Alone

(A/N- alright, I know this fic is a little unbalanced, what with my having one chapter in Dean's pov, and the rest in Seamus', and I promise, there will be another Dean's pov in the future, it's just that he hasn't been letting me get into his head, while Seamus has been very obliging. Someone had better give that boy a talking to, and tell him that artistic secretiveness is all very well, but his is getting in the way of my fic! Anyhow, I'm talking crazy again, so I'd better get on with the fic!)

Sdsdsdsdsdsdsds

The school year began, and Seamus realized he was in for a long wait before he would hear from Dean. This gave him plenty of time to think about what to do about "the situation", as he'd taken to calling it to himself in his head. Unfortunately, thinking didn't seem to help him make sense of "the situation" at all, and Seamus had never been much good at waiting.

He was, in a way, therefore lucky that there was so much going on at Hogwarts to distract himself with. He was shocked by the brutality he saw in the first few weeks at school; after that he, as well as all the rest, began to get used to it.

The Carrows came down hard on supporters of Dumbledore and Harry, on Gryphendors and on half-bloods. Since Seamus fit all four catagories, he didn't have an easy time of it, but he made a decision early on not to take it lying down. He was surprised to realize, a few weeks into the term, that he'd somehow, strangely, stumbled into the thick of the resistance movement.

Perhaps it was because he was a seventh year, or because he was reckless, or because he was the only roommate Neville, who surprised himself and everyone else by turning into a leader before their very eyes, had left, but whatever the reason, Seamus took to revolution like a duck to water. He'd always had a smart mouth and a predilection for breaking rules: now he had a cause. And if he ended up getting knocked round a little bit, (or, as he admitted when he was being honest with himself, if he got stabbed and tortured and trampled a little bit,) well, it was for a good cause, wasn't it? Anything they could do against you-know-who was worth it, wasn't it?

When he was entirely frank with himself, which wasn't often, he admitted that perhaps he was being so careless with his own well being in an effort not to worry himself to death over a certain still-unheard-from artist-boy with chapped lips and quiet laughter. Seamus knew Dean would shake him for all the stupid risks he was taking. If Seamus kept on being so reckless (as he was), Dean might even plead with him.

"Shay," he'd say, "you're all I have. Please don't get yourself hurt with any of this resistance nonsense."

When Seamus would protest that what they were doing was important, he knew Dean would argue, "It's not really changing anything, except maybe to make the punishments harsher each time…"

Dean would know, too, that Seamus wouldn't listen. Dean knew Seamus better than anybody. Dean would eventually give up with a sigh, and say, "Just be careful, Seamus. Please.", and Seamus would hate himself for making imaginary-Dean sad.

Sometimes Seamus worries for his own sanity, worries that Dean took his grasp on reality with him in that old green knapsack he'd carried.

Sometimes imaginary-Dean kisses Seamus again. In his dreams, Seamus doesn't mind.

Sdsdsdsdsdsdsdsds

Ginny eventually notices, some time around October, that he's pining madly for her ex-boyfriend. Perhaps she sees in him a mirror of her own desperate but muted worry and longing for Harry.

She asks him when the last time he heard from Dean was, and looks slightly appalled when he answers that he hasn't seen or heard from Dean since he went off into hiding in mid-July. She asked if he'd tried sending a message to Dean which would be projected on to every one of the DA's charmed galeons. Just to make sure he's alright, she says, now looking a little worried herself.

Seamus replies that it's surely worth a try, but Dean packed pretty light, and he wasn't at all sure he'd have the coin with him.

He tries anyway, but receives no reply.

Sdsdsdsdsdsdsdsd

In January, Seamus finally tries sending in an information-request on Potterwatch. He feels a gleam of hope the night the announcement is read. The hope dies slowly for a week and a half, until the night when a message is broadcasted, saying that Dean had been alive and well not three weeks ago, when Ted Tonks last saw him.

The entirety of the DA is amazed by Seamus' delighted whoop of glee. He jump to his feet and pulls Lavender, who is nearest, out of her seat. He whirls her around the room, chanting under his breath "alive and well, alive and well."

Lavender hardly minds, and sits down later with a smile, reflecting that she hasn't see Seamus so happy all year.


	6. Reunion

(A/N -So I'm inclined to think this chapter isn't all that good, but I only feel so guilty, since I only got one review on the last chapter. Was it really that bad? Or have I lost all my readers? There never were legion of you. Maybe it's because I forgot to beg .

please Please PLEASE review.)

Seamus really was interested in what was going on; how could he not be? Harry Potter had shown up out of the blue, and was dragging them all into a world of adventure and danger (though, to be honest, staying at school had become fairly dangerous, too), whether he wanted to or not. Nothing could have distracted Seamus from the ensuing conversation. Nothing, that is, except for what happened. Dean stepped into the room, and suddenly nothing else mattered, or had any meaning at all.

Seamus did not hear himself exclaim with delighted relief, was not aware he had sprinted across the room until he was standing right in front of the object of his worry and confusion for the first time in nearly nine months. Even then, after stepping into the inevitable hug and clinging too tight for too long, he was surprised to hear himself whispering urgently, begging, even, "Don't go away again, please. Please, please don't go."

Long, wiry arms tightened around him, held him closer, and a low, deep voice murmured, "No, I shan't go. But perhaps we should tune into the real world, now. It sounds like great thing are afoot. Maybe it'll be interesting,"

The quiet, wry, no-nonsense voice was more familiar to Seamus than his own, and it effectively dragged him back to reality. There was a war going on here. Time enough later for childishly intense relief and awkwardly comforting reunions, and if there was no chance later, hopefully Seamus wouldn't be around to know the difference.

They rejoined the general conversation with no particular fanfare, slipping into unexceptionable banter and the unusual seriousness the situation warranted. They even joined the crush of teenagers entering as combatants for the first time in a war begun before their birth.

Before slipping off into mayhem and obscurity, a panicked Seamus Finnegan dragged Dean off into a corridor and asked him, "Please tell me there'll be an afterward, so we can sort all this out?" by "this" he meant the way they were entirely unsure now what they were to each other, and a desperate confusion leaked into his voice.

Dean slowly shook his head, unwilling to give Seamus false hope, but Seamus broke in almost angrily, "Lie to me, then! I don't care. Make it all up. I just need to be able to picture a time after today. I want to be surprised when I die, so I won't go out thinking about all this -this confusion. All these things we've yet to sort out."

Dean shook his head again, but not, this time, in refusal. "I've never been much good at making up stories," he said with a wry grin, "but I think you and I are a bit too hardheaded to get killed off by that lot."

"Just tell me you'll be here." Seamus whispered, abandoning all pretence of normalcy or calm.

"I'll be here."


	7. Aftermath

(A/N- So here it is -my final chapter, although if someone asks me to, I may write an epilogue, since I know there isn't all that much fluff here, and for someone as morbid as I am, I have an uncommon fondness for fluff.

So anyways, I'm not sure this is all that good, and it certainly is different from how I envisioned it. I'm just trying not to let the strangeness that, if you squint, you might call my love life, get in the way of the boys' chance for happiness.

And thank you so much for all my lovely reviews- you guys are the best. When I actually have some free time I'll review reply personally, I swear.)

Sdsdsdsdsdsdsdsd

Dean refused to look for Seamus. He would not join the ranks of the living ghosts who drifted across the floors stained with blood, picking through bodies, dreading and praying for the sight of a familiar face. In any case wouldn't be among the bodies, Dean was convinced, he simply couldn't be.

Dean knew Seamus too well to worry. Sooner or later he would bound over, irritatingly cheerful and bafflingly full of energy. Until then, Dean looked after Luna, who'd been injured by the fighting, but not quite badly enough to warrant the attention of the terrifyingly few medi-witches and -wizards. Dean bound up the gash on her arm. He supported her as she hobbled across the room to a space relatively free of bodies. He ignored her when she told him to go.

"Just find him," she begged, "I'll be fine. I hate to see you so worried."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he replied, careful not to look at the faces of the fallen as they walked past. Luna had lost some of her innocent dreaminess in the past year, since her capture in particular, and to have such obvious idiocy shoved in her face annoyed her.

"Don't be thick," she snapped. "You know," she added with a cruelty she hadn't known she possessed, three weeks ago, "If he's found dead, you'll never be able to live with yourself. You'll never know if you could have saved him if you'd only looked sooner."

Dean glared at her, and then returned to his self appointed task of leading her across the room. He put one foot in front of the other with a dogged efficiency, as if forcing himself to take each step. When they reached the cleared space, Luna reached out and touched his hand.

"Just go, Dean," she whispered. Dean gulped, nodded, and waded off across a battlefield which had once been a home, in search of one he'd hoped never to lose.

Sdsdsdsdsdsdsdsdsdsd

Seamus hoped never to feel the heat and fury of battle again.

His own ruthlessness, his own brutal instincts, terrified him almost as much as the fact that somewhere in the crush of bodies and blood and hurled curses, he'd somehow managed to lose Dean again. One thing that, for some reason, did not bother him was the way he'd felt one of the big bones in his leg snap in half as a result of one of the many hexes and jinxes which had flown by.

After his leg had broken, he'd fallen to the floor with a crash, blood still coursing with adrenaline, and continued to duel until his opponent fell in a boneless heap, after which he'd promptly blacked out.

Upon awaking, he was greeted with an eerie silence, a sharp, shooting pain in his leg, and an irresistible wave of self-pity, self-hatred, and loneliness, and the blessedly muddled memories of his own previous reckless fury.

And that was how Dean found him, nearly half an hour later, so enmeshed in his own pain and guilt he didn't even notice Dean's approach until he crouched down beside him, a concerned expression on his face, and asked, "Shay? Are you alright?"

"hmm? Oh, no, not really," Seamus, never one for dissembling or ignoring obvious truths, had replied.

"What's wrong?" Dean had asked, worry lines deepening in his face.

Sdsdsdsdsdsdsdsdsd

It was hard to find a medi-witch who was willing to venture beyond the corner the wounded had been brought to, across long hallways to a trembling blond boy with a broken leg, but Dean was nothing if not tenacious, and as soon as Seamus could walk again, they left the building, abandoning the stench of death in silence.

Despite the inner turmoil caused by terror and relief and multitudinous guilt; guilt for having killed, even in self defense, guilt for being alive while others were dead, guilt for not having looked sooner for the one person in the world who means so much; they don't say anything.

Their silence has nothing to do with the battlefield, however, and everything to do with the fact that they are uncertain, insecure, and seventeen, and so brimming with love, or something like it, that they can't say a word.

They follow familiar paths, walking down to the lake, the quidditch pitch, the edge of the forbidden forest. They slow as they approach the whomping willow, and the thought comes to Seamus' mind unbidden that it's hardly the most romantic spot. He laughs a little at his own foolishness, and Dean looks at him questioningly. Seamus only shrugs and, perversely, sits on the dew-covered ground. Dean sits beside him, and for a moment it looks like silence will win the day, but then Seamus speaks.

"What you said -before you left last summer -you did mean it, didn't you?"

"Would I have said so if I didn't?" Dean asks, staring at his hands.

"You might. I never can tell with you…" With the teasing edge in Seamus' voice, this could be any day in the past seven years, but Dean has never been so nervous around his friend.

"Well…Yes," he says, and clears his throat, "Yes, I meant it."

"Good," Seamus says, and he's smiling, and Dean knows this would be the perfect fairy-tale moment to lean over and kiss him, so he does. It isn't perfect, it's awkward and uncertain, and the rain has started to fall, so it's wet and cold, but when they pull back, Seamus is still smiling, and Dean knows they'll have plenty of chances to get it right.

END

Sdsdsdsdsdsdsd

(A/N 2 -So what do you think? Love it? Hate it? Anyone want me to write an epilogue?

I know it's a little dismal-feeling, but it's got a basically happy ending, and I hope it's at least semi-believable in terms of actual human behavior or whatever.

Thanks so much to all my lovely wonderful amazing readers, even the ones who have me on alerts but don't review, though I wish you would.

Please review!)


	8. Epologue

Alright, so it's a lot less fluffy than I intended it to be, and there's no smut at all, but then, I never promised smut. I had fun writing it, it seems to fit the story, and hopefully you'll like it. Please Please Please PLEase PLEAse PLEASe PLEASE review, even if you hate it. I know the final chapter wasn't the best, but seriously guys, three reviews? I'm hurt. Thanks a million to all who did review though. I hope you all enjoyed my first real chapter fic. I know I did.

sdsdsdsdsdsdsdsd

Epologue

At the end of a battle of such epic proportions, surely Seamus and Dean deserve a happily-ever-after, but life's too three dimensional for that, and even Seamus, with his predilection for delusion, knows better than to expect a fairy-tale ending. It's hard, dating your best friend. There's just so much there to lose.

Still, even if it isn't the fictional perfection they obviously deserve, their lives start to fit together surprisingly well, in the weeks that follow. They move in together because it seems the only logical move: Seamus feels too fully grown to go back to living at home, and Dean hasn't got a home to go to. Neither can really afford anything on their own, and there's another, less practical reason neither will speak aloud, but which, nonetheless, plays a crucial part in the decision-making process. Irrational as it may be, they're both thinking in terms of forever when they think about the relationship they still refuse to define, and so presumably they'll be moving in together sooner or later anyway, and why wait?

The apartment is grotty and crumbling, but it's really theirs, and all they can afford, so they pretend to love it to friends and strangers, and secretly plot together to rob Gringotts and steal just enough to buy a mansion. Seamus has a part time job at Quality Quiddich Supplies, and Dean waits tables nights at The Leaky Cauldron and sells a few paintings and sketches at muggle and wizarding galleries alike. Their job opportunities are rather limited, since technically they're both dropouts who've never taken their NEWTS.

Of course, they could have followed the example of several of their classmates and taken seventh year over again, but Seamus has always been looking for a reasonable reason to drop out (a desire which had less to do with hating school than with the fact that he loved the mystique surrounding the word "dropout"), and Dean can't really see his way back into the comfortably structured school world after a year of terror at the sound of footsteps, sleeping in ditches and training himself to breathe soundlessly. He's jumpy enough as it is.

There's an issue, though. There always has to be an issue. This one springs form the fact that their apartment is unfurnished, and Dean and Seamus certainly don't have any furnishings. They've begged and borrowed one chair and a small table for dean to work at, a dented kettle and a couple of sleeping bags, but camping out doesn't actually hold any appeal for either of them, so they start saving up to furnish the place pretty early on.

The issue that comes up is, of course, beds. Specifically, do they get one, or two? Remember now, this something they've got going on is no more than a month or so old, and they've got seven years of entirely platonic friendship behind them, too. To put it delicately, they're still moving fairly slowly with the physical aspect of everything, and while neither really wants to admit it, they still feel fairly self conscious with the idea of sharing a bed.

Seamus in particular doesn't want to seem reluctant, since Dean's been taking all the risks here, so though he blushes red, he still manages to say one evening, quite calmly, that, "It seems to make sense to only get one. I mean-" and here he stutters a little, nervous and uncertain, "it doesn't have to mean anything, anything different. I mean, we can still go on as we have, and then, I mean, well it could just be completely innocent or whatever for as long as -for as long as it takes us to get that far."

He finally looks up from staring resolutely at a spot on the floor, and Dean smiles reassuringly at him, takes his hand and replies, "You're right. It does make more sense."

The subject is changed after a slightly awkward pause, but the next day they go shopping for a bed.

Sdsdsdsdsdsdsdsd

Seamus is an extremely friendly guy. That's all it is. That's why, when he asks the girl in the furniture store about where they could find the cheapest bed in the entire store, and she replies with some ridiculously obvious innuendo, he only laughs, and when she tells him the aisle number and offers to take him there, he only says that would be wonderful.

Dean, however, thinks her giggle is annoying, her eye make-up excessive, and the amount of cleavage she's showing, indecent. He doesn't say as much, but his look certainly implies it as he walks over from the magazine rack he's been idly browsing.

"I think we can find it ourselves, thanks," he replies, scrupulously polite as ever. "Aisle six, did you say?" The girl's eyes widen slightly as Dean grabs Seamus' wrist and drags him off in the exact wrong direction. She considers telling him this, but concludes that if she did so, he just might smack her, and goes back to the inventory she'd been occupied with previously.

Seamus, slightly puzzled asks, "Whatever in the world was that all abut?". When Dean's only reply is to counter with the question, "Do you really have to be such a flirt, Finnegan?", Seamus feels a (now fairly familiar) jolt of realization of something that should have been obvious.

"You were jealous, weren't you?" he asks, unaccountably pleased by the idea. When Dean makes no reply he continues, "You needn't have been. She's really not my type. I tend to go for the classic ideal -you know, tall, dark, handsome, artistic, sensitive, all that stuff that's almost impossible to find all in one person. You don't know of anyone like that, do you?"

Sdsdsdsdsdsdsds

I'm really kind of pleased with the way I worked the title backing at the end.

Please review!


End file.
